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My perspective on Hamas and Gaza

Summary

To understand Hamas, one must read its Charter.

It shows that Hamas is committed to reconquering the whole of Palestine.

This goal is not achievable, but causes immense suffering to Gaza's Palestinians.

Hamas needs to change its goals or to dissolve itself.

Posted 3 September 2014. Updated 2 April 2015 with section "Ideological & Behavioral Metamorphoses: A New Charter for a New Hamas."

As far as I can recall, I first became aware of Hamas during the Second Intifada when, like several other Palestinian groups, it was responsible for sending suicide bombers to kill Jewish Israelis, without concern about whether they were soldiers or civilians, adults or children. While Hamas appeared to be the most extreme Palestinian faction, I had hopes that it would change, as had the PLO when it decided to enter into the Oslo Accords.

When Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian election, I considered that the responsibility of having to govern might help to produce such change, and was very disappointed when a financial boycott by Israel, Europe and the USA made it impossible for Hamas to lead a Palestinian government. While my hopes for Hamas to change might have been disappointed in any event, I still consider that an opportunity was lost at that time.

When major hostilities broke out again in 2012, I did not publish anything, but was of the view that Hamas deserved at least as much blame for the outbreak of hostilities as Israel. This summer when conflict broke out again, it was even clearer to me that Hamas had initiated the conflict for political reasons, given its recent loss of support due to the conflict in Syria and the change of government in Egypt. Accordingly many of the tweets that I issued during the conflict shared articles in the quality press which explained Hamas’s political objectives, and which also outlined the resources that Hamas had poured into its network of tunnels constructed for the purposes of attacking Israel.

What is wrong with Hamas

To understand Hamas, one has to read the document which sets out its aims and objectives. That is the “Hamas Charter” or “Hamas Covenant.” There are many English translations available; the one I have linked to is at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School, chosen for the academic credentials of the institution. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of this or other English translations of the Charter on the internet. If Hamas considers that they are inaccurate, it is well placed to issue its own authorised English translation.

The Hamas Charter on Palestine

While the Charter contains a number of disgraceful anti-Semitic slurs, recycling the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, for me the most fundamental issue is what it says about Palestine.

Article Eleven begins:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?

This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.”

Article Thirteen begins:

"Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, the direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.”

The Charter makes peace impossible

It is clear from the Charter that Hamas believes that it must fight until all of Palestine is under Muslim control.

Indeed the same logic from Article 11 would require it to fight until all of Spain, Sicily, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania, etc. were also under Muslim control, since these lands were also once conquered by Muslims.

Quite apart from any views that one may have on the morality or religious accuracy of its position (I believe it has no theological validity, but this page is not about religion), the consequence is that Hamas will not agree to a permanent peace with Israel, regardless of Israel’s borders. Indeed if Israel was reduced to no more than the municipality of Tel Aviv, Hamas would logically still deny it the right to exist.

What this means for the Palestinians in Gaza

Regardless of whether you consider your position to be justified or not, it is futile to fight against someone who is incomparably more powerful, when you are certain to get militarily crushed.

Accordingly, by its policy of military resistance, Hamas condemns its fellow Palestinians to suffering the consequences of its policy. These consequences include:

The impact of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza, intended to limit the flow of weapons into Gaza. The blockade also limits the flow of “dual use material” which could be used for either peaceful purposes or for military purposes. The recent conflict has shown how Hamas diverted cement to build tunnels for use in attacking Israel.

Death and injury when Israel responds to rocket fire from within Gaza. The recent conflict gave rise to many reports of Hamas choosing to fire rockets from built up civilian areas. At the very least Hamas has been reckless in its conduct. More critical observers consider that Hamas seeks maximum Palestinian civilian casualties for propaganda reasons.

A summary of my view on Hamas

There are many reasons for condemning Hamas. These include:

Its vile anti-Semitism.

Its disregard of the distinction between civilians and soldiers, both when it sent suicide bombers into Israel and when it fires inaccurate rockets at Israeli cities without caring who they might kill. The potential victims also include Arab Israelis.

The way it murdered its political opponents from Fatah when it seized control of Gaza after the split in the post-election government in 2007.

Its increasingly rigid imposition of a conservative interpretation of Islam upon the residents of Gaza.

However my most fundamental reason for condemning Hamas is the suffering it imposes upon Gaza's Palestinians by pursuing its goal of a military reconquest of the the whole of Palestine.

What Gaza’s Palestinians need

As explained above, Hamas’s quixotic goal of reconquering the whole of Palestine is simply not feasible. That applies regardless of one’s views on whether that goal is moral or not. Pursuing that goal is not in the interests of Gaza’s Palestinians.

Mohammed Amin: My perspective on the Gaza conflict

One local effect of the conflict we are seeing between Israel and Hamas (alongside the other armed Palestinians factions in Gaza) is a tribalistic pressure upon people to “support their side.” For example I have been harangued on social media by other Muslims demanding that I condemn Israel’s conduct, but no Muslims have called upon me to criticise Hamas’s conduct. I suspect that Jewish peace advocates have come under similar pressure from other Jews to condemn Hamas’s conduct but experienced no pressure from other Jews to criticise Israel’s conduct.

When a British Muslim or a British Jew condemns the conduct of Israel or Hamas respectively, no matter how sincerely, they automatically invite the Mandy Rice Davies response: “He would, [say that] wouldn’t he?” Nobody’s understanding of the issues is advanced one iota when they hear Muslims criticising Israel, or hear Jews criticising Hamas.

Accordingly I will leave it to British Jews, and Britons who are neither Muslim nor Jewish, to criticise Israel’s conduct of its military operations in Gaza, and its prior conduct during periods of quiet. Instead I want to share two points:

My perspective on Hamas

I felt optimistic in 2006 when Hamas won the Palestinian election. My hope, perhaps naïve, was that Hamas was better placed to make peace with Israel than Fatah, just as it was easier for Nixon to go to China than it would have been for a Democrat. At that time I had not read Hamas’s charter.

The Hamas Charter, adopted in 1988, is a profoundly depressing document. As well as regurgitating the same anti-Semitic fabrications as are found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Charter rejects the idea that any part of the land of Palestine can ever be controlled other than by Muslims. Accordingly Hamas is dedicated to armed struggle until Israel is destroyed.

Although as the Guardian in 2006 explained Hamas left the destruction of Israel out of its 2006 election manifesto to the best of my knowledge Hamas has never stated that it believes in peace with Israel. I understand that the most that it has ever offered Israel is an extended truce. A truce is something that is normally followed by the resumption of hostilities.

With its commitment to the destruction of Israel, Hamas has nothing to offer Palestinians other than the misery of permanent war. It needs to either revise its Charter, drastically, or to dissolve itself.

My recommendations for UK Government policy

The outline for the only kind of permanent peace agreement that can preserve the character of Israel as a democratic state with a Jewish majority has been clear for over a decade. That is the two-state solution.

I wrote about it in December 2008 in my first piece about the Middle East during operation Cast Lead “Gaza and the need for peace now.” It is also the only solution realistically attainable for the Palestinians, since Israel is not going to disappear voluntarily, and nuclear armed powers cannot be conquered militarily.

The intervening years have demonstrated that both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships are unwilling to make the sacrifices that a achieving the two-state solution requires.

Over decades, Israel has built settlements on the West Bank, all of which are illegal. Our Government is clear about the illegality at this link. (“The UK has a clear position on Israeli settlements: The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights are territories which have been occupied by Israel since 1967. Settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible. We will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties.”) Israel has also purported to annex the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Achieving peace will require Israel to withdraw from most of the West Bank, and to offer to trade land of equivalent value for any West Bank land retained. Most emotively Israel will also need to agree a special status for the holy places in Jerusalem, a city which is holy to 2bn Christians and 1.5bn Muslims as well as 14m Jews and accept that Palestinians will also have their capital in Jerusalem.

For decades Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948 have clung on to their “right of return.” In a peace agreement they will have to accept that they are never going to have the right to return to live inside Israel. It is no more feasible for them to return to Israel than it is for the similar number of Jews who were expelled from Arab countries after Israel was created to return to those countries. This abandonment of the Palestinian refugees’ hope of return will need assuaging with monetary compensation and citizenship rights in the countries where they now live for those who do not wish to move to the West Bank or Gaza.

Sadly, but perhaps understandably, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have repeatedly shied away from telling their people the truth that a permanent peace is not possible without such concessions. It is always easier to put off difficult decisions, and focus on why the immediate circumstances are not conducive to agreeing peace.

Since 2002, the Quartet of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia has allegedly been mediating the Middle East peace process. It has failed to achieve anything meaningful, in my view because too much responsibility has been left to the USA.

Unfortunately, the power of the Israel Lobby (discussed in “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” by Mearsheimer and Walt) has meant that the USA has failed to exercise the leverage that it has over Israel. Nor do the Palestinians regard the USA as a neutral interlocutor. Hence US led peace negotiations have gone nowhere.

Our Government needs to be more active itself in the search for Middle East peace, and to encourage the EU to wield its considerable economic power to influence both parties. In my view the Quartet needs to lay down a detailed peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians to accept or reject, just as the UN did with its 1947 Partition Resolution. If one of the parties does reject the Quartet plan, that party should face economic sanctions.

Comments from Conservative Home readers

The orginal piece on Conservative Home received a number of readers' comments. While I am used to readers disagreeing with me, a number of the comments were supportive. They can be read at the foot of the piece on the Conservative Home website.

Ideological & Behavioral Metamorphoses: A New Charter for a New Hamas

I was not the only person who was optimistic around 2006 that Hamas might change for the better.

This is a 152 page thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Modern Middle Eastern Studies Faculty of Oriental Studies University of Oxford. I found the entire thesis fascinating to read and it vividly illustrates the hopes that existed at that time. I recommend reading the full document.

Pages 79 - 88 of the thesis discuss how Hamas's position on Israel appeared at that time to be evolving. Sadly no such evolution has materialised.

Even today in 2015 apologists for Hamas still trot out items from 2006 such as the Guardian article mentioned above as evidence for Hamas’s change. The reality is that Hamas has had, and has today, plenty of opportunity to say if it recognises Israel's right to exist in perpetuity. It chooses not to do so.

The most I have ever seen is Hamas offering a long-term truce. A truce is not peace, it is an interregnum before war is resumed.

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